RFA members of the RMT Union have voted to end the long-running dispute over pay after finally being awarded a significant increase that reflects the decline in salaries over many years.
The RFA has been in sharp decline as sailors have been leaving and are not being replaced, primarily because pay and conditions in equivalent roles in commercial shipping are superior. The end of the pay dispute is a positive step and a sign that their concerns have begun to be addressed and may go some way to stabilising the workforce situation.
The RMT says it has delivered significant wins on pay and conditions for its members. The headline is that all employees will receive a 6.5% pay award plus a further £750 consolidated into base pay from 1st November 2024 and £750 consolidated into base pay on 1st February 2025. Everyone will receive the full award as a consolidated increase.
Sailors will be eligible for a shorthand allowance based on 3% of the salary (to cover the period 1st July 2024 – 1st October 2025) in recognition of extra workload on ships that are understaffed. Up to 50% of Earned Voyage Leave (EVL) can be ‘cashed in’ or liquidised over a financial year starting in February 2025.
The length of assignments will be reduced from 16 weeks to between 10-12 weeks, allowing for personal preference. This will be phased in between February – October 2025. RFA personnel rotate between ships on assignments followed by leave periods, so shorter assignments mean a better work-life balance and are more in line with commercial shipping practice.
The MoD has also committed to further reviewing assignment lengths and Continuous Pay by 1st October 2025 and ratifying a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between RFA and Maritime Trade Unions by June 2025, with a draft in place by 1st March 2025. The Unions and Ministry of Defence will also continue to work on a wider “reset” of the RFA offer, including pay and lived experienced enhancements.
The end of this entirely avoidable dispute will hopefully be the start of the RFA recovering its strength. There will be some that still believe the pay offer need to be higher (up to 15%) to be fully competitive. The RFA does have some unique selling points and even in it diminished state, is still the largest employer of British seafarers. With stable employment and a good pension scheme, it and offers an exciting and varied career experience that generally can’t be matched in the merchant navy.
However the fleet is at a low ebb and it will not be easy to quickly build up a numbers again. There is a distinct possibility the improved offer will be enough to stop those currently serving from leaving prematurely but is not enough to persuade significant numbers to choose to join the RFA instead of taking commercial jobs. Recruitment is difficult as there is a global shortage of mariners and young people wanting to start careers at sea.
(Main image: RFA Tidespring in the Pacific, July 2021. Photo: Sgt. Petronilla)
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Great news! Shrinking RFA man-power is stopping many things on RFA and RN.
Now we can proceed.
While this is a good start, the proof will be in the eating.
In particular, whether the commitment to following through on the wider agreement stands up. Rachel from accounts is going to run out of money soon and no prizes for guessing whether she’ll punt for keeping the doctors and teachers sweet or spend money on defence.
Looks like a quick fix to end the immediate impasse, but essentially kicking the can down the road.
N-a-B
Wise words
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
PS The RFA would have got a much bigger pay rise if they had joined ASLEF!
This deal should be safe. In cash terms it’s peanuts in terms of MoD spending never mind HMG as a whole spending. It’s good news. genuinely good news.
I think the wariness of the deal comes from past actions where the RFA have made commitments as part of the pay deal, only to break the commitments later on. Base pay is harder for them to reneg on, but I’m still waiting on back pay from the 23/24 payrise and three month trips never came to fruition.
In Labour we trust. RR knows exactly what she is doing.
😆
What run out of money ?
It amazes me sensible people can say such nonsense, but its just partisan blinkers, the same dross that bought 14 years of austerity and absurdity-mini budget 2022 anyone?
Rachel from accounts had a budget which Taxes will rise by £40bn, borrowing by £28bn and spending by £70bn.
Checked the Gilt rates recently? Cost of borrowing now higher than when Truss “crashed the economy”…..
Pound also falling against the dollar. Recession inbound. Still, nothing to do with Racjel from accounts, obvs…..
You beat me to it. Even since yesterday both 10 and 30 year yields have risen.
Ref your remarks about RFA pay; absolutely correct. I began my sea going life as an RFA deck apprentice and later as a deck officer, and so I remember when the RFA was well paid. Sadly no longer the case.
Blame the tories then , but you wont.
Our terms and conditions of employment are woefully behind the private sector with both officers and crew having suffered a real terms pay cut exceeding 30% since 2015 alone.”
https://www.navylookout.com/royal-fleet-auxiliary-sailors-seeking-fair-pay-hold-fifth-round-of-industrial-action/
Still needs reminding
These rates ?
Not too different from jun23 to Oct 23 is it- which was even higher than during Truss & crew
they are only the usual bounce
Nothing like the jump from 1.76% to 4.3% over a few months. Although the inflation related climb began before that
Its an absurd claim the colossal and abrupt gilts % change from Trussenomics is the same as that rise recently
Evidence not your thing ?
Silly boy. Different sides of the same coin. Truss aiming for growth by lowering taxes, but leaving exposure to public spending. Rachel from Accounts talking about growth but actively deterring it through adding to cost-base of productive part of economy, leading to likely recession.
Relevance in this case being that ability to actually fund defence is going to be crippled, because – as all economists are pointing out – likelihood to meet her “Golden Rule” will be cuts in spending. No prizes for guessing where they’ll fall. Hint – it won’t be the client power bases of health, education and DEI…..
the IMF are circling already… and it’s not because of an imaginary 22 billion black hole!
A good start, but this doesn’t fix recruitment, as the author states.
Pleased to see that they are finally receiving a “decent” salary. One thing, for an x-crab, and former MOD Civil servant, any chance someone can interpret some of 5he terms used, please?
Which terms?
Pomepeyblokeinoxford
When you were employed as an MOD civil servant, you should have known all of the necessary terms / jargon / lingo / TLA’s
It was THE key part of your key job description .
Therefore dDid you become former civil servant where your annual performance review revealed that you did not know one vital TLA?
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
What does this mean??
As a recent leaver from the RFA this isn’t a massive win it was the bare minimum and didn’t cover the 23-24 period the dispute was originally about. It is a smoke screen that doesn’t address the massive losses on pay over the last ten years or the massive increase In work load. The reduction in trip length has been talked about for years. The 1500 payment is great for the juniors but doesn’t help the seniors that are actually leaving with their tickets. The 3% short hand will be gone by October and I doubt it will come back unless used again as a carrot for another industrial action. And again isn’t fair when some departments are heavily undermanned and overworked but everyone gets the same.
The unions rolled over and friends are already leaving them as a waste of their fees.
Certainly won’t tempt me to come back any time soon.
Says RMT
Believe it when I see it, If it isn’t a train they couldn’t give a t**s. As for Nautilus….
RMT Union which covers the RFA, has R meaning what ?
Why couldnt the Tories ‘fix this’ in the previous 5 years you might ask – but wont
RMT wanted to give the Government and their sponsors, the Labour party a ‘look at the unions, they are working with us’ dit
Middle ranking RFA officers can earn £50k pa in the commercial sector. Their oppos in the US equivalent earn significantly more than the RFA and they’re not happy. How they are treated, the mismanagement of recruitment, state of the fleet, and a sense of duty will remain significant factors in retention.
Great news to read! Finally some common sense applied by the MOD.
I’d be interested to know, once all of that shorthand allowance etc. is normalised, what the actual difference would have been before the 6.5% pay rise and the 15% that would apparently bring them up to some level of parity. I suspect not a huge amount, and I wonder why it wasn’t just done. Even in the expensive world of defence, people are one of the biggest costs to an operation if you don’t have good quality/enough of them…
Thinking of joining the RFA. I’m ex RN. What would the starting salary be I haven’t got quals for an officer so would probably be a deck hand. Is it worth joining?
Dates back a few years but they haven’t moved on much since, hence the dispute I guess.
FOI2021-02845 List of current pay scales for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary
I started 3 years ago as an apprentice… average take home was less than a 1000 a month. I am now on double that as a qualified AB… the pay is disgustingly low, there are no allowances (as they get in the RN), but you get your own cabin…